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For themselves they fought, for themselves they conquered, and for themselves alone they have they have right to hold.

Thomas Jefferson

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Thomas Jefferson
Age: 83 †
Born: 1743
Born: April 2
Died: 1826
Died: July 4
3Rd U.S. President
Archaeologist
Architect
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Diplomat
Farmer
Inventor
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Slaveholder
President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Conquered
Fought
Hold
Alone
Right

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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The soil is the gift of God to the living.
Thomas Jefferson
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Error is to be pitied and pardoned: it is the weakness of human nature. But vice is a foul blemish, not pardonable in any character.
Thomas Jefferson
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No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America.
Thomas Jefferson
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In a virtuous and free state, no rewards can be so pleasing to sensible minds, as those which include the approbation of our fellow citizens. My great pain is, lest my poor endeavours should fall short of the kind expectations of my country.
Thomas Jefferson
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[Emigrants] will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth or, if able to throw off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
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By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing evil which no honest government should decline.
Thomas Jefferson
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Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government.
Thomas Jefferson
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Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.
Thomas Jefferson
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To take a single step beyond the text would be to take possession of a boundless field of power.
Thomas Jefferson
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Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous. . . .
Thomas Jefferson
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I may err in my measures, but never shall deflect from the intention to fortify the public liberty by every possible means, and to put it out of the power of the few to riot on the labors of the many.
Thomas Jefferson
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I do not like [in the new Federal Constitution] the omission of a Bill of Rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for... protection against standing armies
Thomas Jefferson
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To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.
Thomas Jefferson
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If science produces no better fruits than tyranny... I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest and estimable as our neighbouring savages are.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is always better to have no ideas than false ones to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
Thomas Jefferson
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The truth is, that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in His genuine words.
Thomas Jefferson
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If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater are we made for ourselves.
Thomas Jefferson
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Our ancestors ... were laborers, not lawyers.
Thomas Jefferson
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The fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follow that, and in its turn wretchedness and oppression.
Thomas Jefferson
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Having labored faithfully in establishing the right of self-government, we see in the rising generation, into whose hands it is passing, that purity of principle and energy of character which will protect and preserve it through their day, and deliver it over to their sons as they receive it from their fathers.
Thomas Jefferson